Woah, sorry for the absence!

I don't know what happened to the last 2 weeks, or honestly, to this whole year. How the heck is it already the last few weeks of the year!?!? This is nuts. I know I got married this year and that probably ate a good 4 months out of the year, but honestly, where did all the rest of the time GO? It's downright scary.

What's funny is that I think about posting almost everyday, but it never seems to happen. And then, on days when I really, really, REALLY mean to post, and even go so far as to take the camera out and try to find some good light to actually take WIP shots for the blog, the dang battery's dead. By the time it's recharged the light is gone and another few days have passed with no post.

So, in the interest of posting SOMETHING, here's some bread I made on November 29th . . . which seems like it was a month ago, honestly.

This is the Whole Grain Ciabatta recipe from King Arthur's Flour (surprised? hope not!). It did puff nearly as much as their photo shows, but it still came out pretty good. I'm not sure how you're supposed to get the seeds to mix in evenly though, they seemed to be comped into certain parts of the bread, leaving other parts completely bare of seeds . . . which, incidentally, worked out quite well for us because Adam doesn't really like seeds in his bread.

I've noticed my bread lately hasn't been rising that much, and I'm trying to work backwards to figure out why. First I thought the oven temperature wasn't right, but the thermometer has proven otherwise. Now I'm wondering if my kneading is to blame -- am I doing it too much, too little? The no-knead breads I made for Thanksgiving turned out the same as always, so that leads me to believe that it really is the kneading. Anyone got any other ideas? I know my yeast is good because the bread rises during the two rises before baking, the problem is with "oven spring" technically . . . thanks in advance for any tips you might have to share!

Oh, and knitting??? I'm barely knitting. I did start making a sweater for Adam . . . but those boring navy blue stockinette photos will have to wait for next time (or who'm I kidding, maybe the time after that).